The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology – film review

The Slovenian philosopher-critic Slavoj Zizek stars in a rich and eccentric movie

Slavoj Zizek in 'The Pervert's Guide to Ideology'

Take a Slovenian philosopher-critic, let him talk in a thick accent for two hours and put him “inside” the films he discusses. The Sound of Music, Triumph of the Will, Titanic… It has to be fascinating, hasn’t it? Have him harangue us while lying on Travis Bickle’s mouldy bed from Taxi Driver. Let him speak and stand on the seeming deck of the Jaws boat . . .

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is oddly hypnotic, even lovable. Slavoj Zizek and director Sophie Fiennes boldly follow their first arcane hit, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. Zizek once more makes with the Marxist philosophising, or his version, rubbishing the capitalist-consumerist dream while utopianising a world where we will all be equal and free. (Contradiction in terms, anti-Marxists would say.) I’m not sure if the Zizek thoughts are an aid to illuminating the Zizek-chosen movies, or vice versa. But it is rich fun and collectably eccentric.